Nvidia & AI: Parallel processing units will likely power advanced artificial intelligence which is key to self-driving cars and significant research products in healthcare, climate, and next-generation transportation. “We’ve been pioneering this computing approach called GPU computing for over the last decade,”Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said. “Over the last seven or eight years, it really went into turbo charge because the model is perfect for artificial intelligence.”

3) Investing

The Week and end of Q1 2018--U.S. financial markets were closed March 30 for Good Friday--the Dow and S&P 500 ended the first quarter of 2018 DOWN 2.3% and 1.2% respectively, while the NASDAQ Composite ended Q1 2018 UP 2.3%:

Tesla Bonds Are in Free Fall | Bloomberg.com: “It’s getting worse and worse every single day ... That’s the nature of being in this negative feedback loop. Everyone is worried.”--Bill Zox, chief investment officer of fixed income at Diamond Hill Investment Group.

2018-03-30

Via Transportation, Inc. (domain: ridewithvia.com) also known simply as Via, is a privately held U.S. transportation network and real-time ridesharing company based in New York City. Via operates in all five boroughs of New York City, areas of Chicago, and Washington DC. The company's technology is used in ridesharing ventures in Paris, United Kingdom, and Austin, Texas.

2018-03-28

Salesforce.com, Inc. (NYSE: CRM) President Bret Taylor discusses his transition to enterprise tech, digital change, as well as Salesforce's agreement to buy MuleSoft Inc. for $6.5 billion. Finally, he gives his take on Facebook's user data scandal. He speaks with Bloomberg's Emily Chang on "Bloomberg Technology" on March 22, 2018.

Salesforce Essentials Demo

Salesforce Essentials, simplified versions of its Sales and Service Cloud products, is aimed at small businesses and organizations, ($25/user/month for teams up to 10). Competitors include ProsperWorks, Zoho, Freshworks and Infusionsoft. Salesforce video above published Nov 6, 2017. More info: https://www.salesforce.com/form/signup/freetrial-sales-essentials.jsp.

2018-03-27

The FT.com's innovations editor John Thornhill investigates how privately held Planet Labs (domain: planet.com) uses a fleet of tiny satellites to image every inch of the globe, and update it every 24 hours. Financial Times (ft.com) video above published Feb 14, 2018.

China Started the Trade War, Not Trump | WSJ.com Mar 23, 2018: "If there’s a trade war between the U.S. and China, don’t blame Donald Trump: China started it long before he became president. Even free traders and internationalists agree China’s predatory trade practices ...."

On Friday, Qualcomm shareholders re-elected the board of directors with only "tepid support"--Reuters.com March 23, 2018.

Qualcomm CFO George Davis told shareholders at the Friday meeting that Qualcomm's offshore cash was needed in connection with the $44-billion acquisition of chip maker NXP Semiconductors NV NASDAQ: NXPI, (pending clearance from Chinese regulator MOFCOM), and therefore could not be distributed to shareholders via dividend.

And finally, in spite of Trump's national security concerns, it is clear Qualcomm has deep relationships with the government of China and Chinese companies such as Huawei, which Broadcom pointed out in the following infographic (pdf) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, DC:

Opinion and Analysis: what's the best path forward?Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), which has the cash, buys Qualcomm. No major Silicon Valley company has more credibility than Apple, with either the Trump administration or China, as US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will attest:

Yes, it would be a big step in vertical integration which Apple's major global competitors, including Samsung and Huawei, have been pursuing for some time. It would also provide a future profitable growth trajectory for Apple and its shareholders. Apple CEO Tim Cook, a global logistics and supply chain expert, could pull it off:

Apple's Tim Cook calls for calm on China, US trade: China Development Forum | cnbc.com Mar 24, 2018: "Apple CEO Tim Cook called for "calm heads" and more open trade amid rising fears of a trade war between the United States and China. "I'm cognizant that in both the U.S. and China, there have been cases where everyone hasn't benefited, where the benefit hasn't been balanced," Cook said. Cook was speaking at the annual China Development Forum in Beijing."

-- John Poole, editor, DomainMondo.com (Disclosure: I own no shares in any of the companies mentioned in this post and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.)

How Europe's New Privacy Law Will Change the Web, and More | WIRED.com 19 Mar 2018: "Most of the data rights enshrined under GDPR were already established in the EU, but went unenforced. GDPR standardizes data rights across all EU countries, empowering regulators with the same big stick and sharper teeth. Violators face fines of up to 4 percent of annual global revenue. For Facebook, that would be $1.6 billion; for Google, $4.4 billion."

"... At the end of March we anticipate having our next interaction with Article 29 representatives since sending them the proposed model. This next stage is critical to determine what appears in the public WHOIS, including what is collected, escrowed and transferred from registrants to registrars and registries. There are open questions about several elements in the Proposed Interim Model and it's important we determine what are the best ways to answer those in a final model. In presenting our plan of action, we want to ensure that access is not lost if an accreditation model is not implemented in time for the GDPR's 25 May 2018 enforcement deadline. We will also highlight again, the importance of additional time to implement our solution. We are very aware of the need for additional time beyond May 2018 to implement a compliance model by which accredited users with a legitimate purpose may gain access to non-public WHOIS data. Feedback may also allow further refinement of the accreditation model. We will share any information that we gain from our next meeting with you by posting it to our Data Protection/Privacy Issues correspondence page ..." (emphasis and link added)--see also:

Note also comments at this week's WSIS Forum 2018: ICANN, Data Protection and the GDPR | GIP Digital Watch | dig.watch: "Mr William J. Drake, international fellow and lecturer at the Department of Communication and Media Research at the University of Zurich, reminded the audience that the first function of the WHOIS service was a narrow technical one, namely, to identify the parties to be reached out to in order to ensure stability of the infrastructure and continuity of the operation. He said that other uses were not part of the discussion in the original bottom-up definition process. He added that current uses of the service cannot be confused with its purpose, mainly now that human rights are in ICANN's bylaws. He called for more involvement from privacy and data protection stakeholders, so that ICANN does not end up running a repository to be used by third parties, out of its scope and mandate.

"Mr Paul Mitchell, senior director of technology policy at Microsoft, said that the GDPR is more closely attached to the European authorities and people, but it impacts all over the world. He highlighted that Microsoft does not see a contradiction between full compliance with the GDPR and legitimate access to WHOIS, which is an important tool to make sure the system is safe. Mitchell concluded by saying that the development of the tiered access model was highly unlikely to be an operational solution with the involvement of stakeholders such as the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), Article19 working party, and data protection authorities, however critical and complex that model might be on the way to a permanent solution." More on that session here.

d. Budget Discussions at ICANN61 | ICANN.org by Göran Marby, ICANN President and CEO, 20 Mar 2018: "... The ideas stemming from these initial conversations, are just that – initial ..."e. More Information on the Adobe Connect Issue | ICANN.org, by Ashwin Rangan, 20 Mar 2018: "...We will continue to provide updates on this issue pursuant to our coordinated disclosure guidelines. This means we will work jointly with CoSo and the person who reported the issue on the investigation and on sharing information about this issue. Until we know more, ICANN's Adobe Connect services will remain offline. In the meantime, we will be rolling out alternative collaboration tools to the community soon ..." (emphasis added)f. ICANN Public Comment periods closing in April (subject to change):

a. DomainNameStats.com--"We've now officially released DomainNameStats.com, a new domain statistics site covering all TLDs that exist on the internet today."--Stats Blog | namestat.org.b. New gTLD .APP--There’s an App for That; Now There’s .APP for That Too | Dorsey & Whitney LLP | JDSupra.com: "Google’s minimal requirements for .app domain names include the following: (1) .app domain name registrations are secure namespaces; (2) all content must be served over HTTPS so that browsers can load .app websites; and (3) any registrant of a letter/letter two-character ASCII label represents that it will take steps to ensure against misrepresenting or falsely implying that the registrant or its business is affiliated with a government or country-code manager if such affiliation, sponsorship or endorsement does not exist ..." Sunrise Period: Mar 29-Apr 30, 2018; Early Access Period: May 1-8, 2018 (anyone can register available .app domains for an extra fee); General Availability Period starts May 8, 2018.

The future really is now—or at least sooner than it seems, according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Speaking at Fortune Brainstorm Tech in Las Vegas, Huang, a co-founder of Nvidia, the gaming giant turned artificial intelligence powerhouse, said the full expression of the technology is a mere decade away. NASDAQ: NVDA (domain: nvidia.com).

Markets got sidelined this week by Facebook's data debacle and Trump attacking all the "bad deals" other U.S. administrations made in good times--Trump may be testing the adage, "Bad deals are made in good times ... It takes bad times to be able to make good deals."--WolfStreet.com.

Trump vs. the WTO? TheU.S. has much lower tariffs on some foreign goods than other countries have on the same US-made goods. For example cars: the European Union has a 10 percent tariff on all imported cars, including those manufactured in the U.S., and China hits all foreign-made cars with 25 percent tariffs. But the U.S. only charges 2.5 percent on foreign cars imported into the U.S. market--Axios.com.

Caveat Emptor: Obama-era fiduciary rule on retirement plannersoverturned--a federal appeals court has ruled that the Department of Labor overstepped its authority when it wrote a rule that required financial professionals, including brokers and insurance agents, to put their customers’ financial interests ahead of their own.

We don’t actually see the world as it is--"Expertise and filtering [can] work together. The better we know our subject matter, the easier it is to filter out irrelevant noise ... Clarity ... [versus] biases and beliefs, reactive emotions ...."-- cfainstitute.org.

Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU)--The Glaring Risk Coming To Crush Micron's Rally | SeekingAlpha.com: "Chinese courts are far from impartial and rulings, especially when politics are involved, are often fraught with meddling from higher courts, local governments, and the federal government. Judges are often pressured by these groups to give rulings that favor their policies, initiatives, or goals."

Crypto: Bitcoin miners on the verge of losing money--cointelegraph.com. Note: "Reuters estimates that more than 980,000 bitcoins, worth more than $10 billion at current prices, have already been stolen from exchanges."--qz.com.

Elon Musk could earn up to $55.8 billion in stock and awards, if Tesla's market cap reaches $650 billion. $TSLA market cap is currently around $52 billion, and Musk will receive no other compensation for his work at Tesla outside the plan approved by shareholders this week--cnbc.com.

An interview with billionaire venture capitalist and co-founder Valar Ventures, Peter Thiel. In this interview with Maria Bartiromo, Thiel discusses how to create innovation and what future innovation he would invest in. He also talks about Bitcoin, privacy, trade and tariffs, and why he supports President Trump.

On privacy (starts at 30:00):

Question: I want to ask you your thoughts on privacy at a time when these technology companies are so successful, more successful and more powerful than they ever have been in terms of having so much information on all of us, you backed Hulk Hogan's successful triumph over Gawker Media and that sex tape that they resulted in a 140 million dollar judgment against Gawker forcing the media company into bankruptcy. You're a libertarian, I want to get your take on how you see the privacy issues versus this powerful position so many of these technology companies are in. I'm leaning to a question about regulation but first why was this Gawker situation so important to you?

Answer: "Well I think that I'm very proud of having supported Hulk Hogan in his in his a successful lawsuit, you know this sort of egregious [conduct], the claim that you know a pornographer pays people for sex tapes and a journalist is someone who gets to publish sex tapes without paying people that's simply an insult to journalists and that's what that is what Gawker was in effect arguing. You know there is a First Amendment we believe in, free speech, but that doesn't mean that you get to steal a sex tape made in the privacy of a bedroom and post it on the internet for everybody to see and ... of course we have a Fourth Amendment which protects you against unreasonable search and seizure not just by the government but certainly also by by private actors ... I'd seen them [Gawker] you know bully and mistreat people for you know for a long time and I thought it was going to continue ... this ongoing tortious behavior was simply going to continue and someone needed to to try to say stop ...

"This question about privacy in the digital era is something that deserves to be rethought a lot and it's not a matter of technological determinism. We often like to tell these technologically determinist stories where if you are pro privacy you are a Luddite and that privacy is an old-fashioned concept, it went out the window and it's no longer possible in the technological world.

"I don't think that's true. I think it is not always just a technological question. It's a legal question, it's a cultural, social, political question and I think that we're going to have a balance that will be, it will protect more privacy in the future. Now I do think that what Gawker did and what the big tech companies are doing is very different. I mean I think one very basic difference is if you voluntarily give the information, that's quite different from from it being sort of illegally obtained and sort of privacy violating way, but I think these things are always open to be rethought ... as a libertarian I always dislike regulation and worry the regulators will do whatever they will do in an even more ham-handed way and will make mistakes even greater than the companies ... but I would agree with you, that if they don't take these issues seriously, there is a risk they will be regulated whether that's a good thing or not. I think the threat is probably greater in Europe and again there's sort of good reasons and bad reasons. Good reasons are these privacy concerns. The bad reasons are that there are no successful [big] tech companies in Europe and they're jealous of the U.S. and ... they're punishing us, so it's sort of a combination of good and bad reasons but I think the tech industry needs to take this stuff [privacy] very seriously."

0:00 Introduction 5:46 How do you see technology changing from here?
13:51 What creates innovation?
15:59 Why have you moved to L.A?
17:20 Why did you support Trump?
19:42 Policies you want to see?21:57 Views on trade?24:52 China?27:15 Are you worried about a trade war?
28:35 Europe? [Editor's note: Thiel comments about U.S. (Trump) vs. China and Germany]
29:59 Thoughts on privacy of technology companies?
33:12 Should there be more regulation?
34:46 Bitcoin? 39:08 Why do you not like other Cryptocurrencies?
40:30 If its price declined, would you buy?
41:42 Thoughts on Space travel?
43:52 Growth stories today?
47:26 Are robots taking over a lot of jobs? [AI]
49:08 Can anyone beat Amazon?
51:43 Other ferocious company?
52:04 Does Trump get a second term?
55:59 Media business?

Transcript (auto-generated, unedited):

Peter Thiel's Book: Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

Peter Thiel’s Favorite Books:

100 Plus: How the Coming Age of Longevity Will Change Everything, From Careers and Relationships to Family and Faith

2018-03-22

ITU video above published Mar 2, 2018: The WSIS Forum is constantly evolving and strengthening the alignment between the WSIS Action Lines and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 2018 Forum will serve as a key platform for discussing the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as a means of implementation of the SDGs and targets, with due regard to the global mechanism for follow-up and review of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

More than 2,500 information and communication technology (ICT) experts from around the globe are in Geneva for the World Summit on the Information Society Forum 2018 (WSIS Forum 2018), which runs March 19-23, and is co-organized by ITU (itu.int), UNESCO (unesco.org), UNCTAD (unctad.org) and UNDP (undp.org), in close collaboration with all UN agencies.

WSIS Forum 2018 is focusing on sustainable development trends and inclusive ICT initiatives in key United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) priority areas such as health, hunger, education, youth inclusion, employment, gender empowerment, the environment, infrastructure and innovation. Participants include at least 500 high-level policy-makers from 150+ countries, including government ministers and experts, civil society leaders, academics, business leaders and international organizations.

Auto-generated transcript via YouTube.com:
00:01 this week a summary of the first few
00:04 classes in my brand strategy course so
00:06 loosely speaking think of a brand as all
00:09 the touch points that create emotional
00:10 and tangibles surrounding a product
00:13 there are three basic categories or
00:16 three basic ways to build a brand
00:17 there's pre-purchase purchase and post
00:20 purchase pre-purchase advertising public
00:23 relations the things we typically
00:25 consider brand building purchase where
00:27 you actually buy the product
00:29 distribution in the store and then post
00:31 purchase loyalty programs customer
00:34 service warranties what do we see
00:36 happening pre-purchase which has been
00:38 massively over invested is in structural
00:41 decline why because advertising stocks
00:43 and the advertising industrial complex
00:46 is collapsing young wealthy people ie
00:48 anybody a brand wants to reach have
00:50 decided to opt out of advertising which
00:52 has become the tax that the poor and the
00:55 technologically illiterate pay what does
00:56 this mean for you it means if you're a
00:58 brand you need to reallocate capital out
01:00 of pre-purchase into purchase or post
01:02 purchase so we take that capital out of
01:04 pre-purchase which is the Ricky move and
01:07 brand strategy and we allocate it
01:08 towards the medium whose death has been
01:10 greatly exaggerated and that is stores
01:12 the gangster move of the last 20 years
01:15 that has created more shareholder value
01:16 than any decision in the history of
01:18 business with Steve Jobs crazy
01:20 irrational decision to zag while everyone
01:23 was zigging and take money out of
01:24 advertising and allocate it into a
01:26 medium that was dying specifically store
01:28 this is our store and the first quarter
01:32 of the store has our home section and
01:35 our Pro section with all our great Pro
01:37 products and every product we make is in
01:40 this first 25 percent of the story and
01:42 see the whole product line stores are
01:44 the consummation of a relationship you
01:47 hear about somebody a good family nice
01:49 fun to be around and pre-purchase
01:51 through advertising but the physical
01:53 interaction the first kiss sex with the
01:57 product who we personify and have a
01:58 relationship with is at the store you
02:01 have sex with Tom Brady or Giselle you
02:03 go into an Apple store you go into a
02:05 Samsung store Samsung distribution which
02:07 is an AT&T; or Verizon store that's
02:09 having sex with a guy named Roy with a
02:11 nametag in bad lighting
02:13 you know what this is yes that is a ten
02:16 times larger than life replica of your
02:17 penis that's how the various point of
02:21 distribution stores are more and more
02:23 strategic and wealth
02:25 square footage and stores will decrease
02:27 the amount of money spent on each square
02:30 foot relatively will increase the other
02:32 gangster move post purchase warranties
02:35 some sort of guarantee some way of
02:37 getting data it's really post purchase
02:40 intelligence where we take data from the
02:42 purchase and use it as a means of
02:44 whipping the consumer back around to
02:46 that purchase funnel again think of the
02:48 clock as being an axis unfurled across X
02:53 Y or an x axis pre purchase purchase and
02:57 post purchase we want you to have a bias
02:59 we want to lean the axis this way
03:02 take money and allocation in your own
03:04 human capital out of pre purchase and
03:07 either put it in to purchase the stores
03:09 are under invested you can still make
03:10 money in retail in stores as long as
03:12 there's an omni-channel and we do click
03:14 and Collect but really try and get to
03:16 post purchase who are the best brand
03:18 builders in the world hands down Tobacco
03:20 take a product whose primary benefits
03:22 are death disease and disability and
03:25 turn them into the most aspirational
03:26 brands that make us bill tough and cool
03:29 and you have the best branders in the
03:30 world why are they the best brands in
03:32 the world because we turn them into the
03:34 best brand builders in the world when
03:35 they were advertising on television our
03:37 mothers our sisters and our daughters
03:38 kept dying and so we said that's it
03:41 we're pissed off you can no longer
03:43 advertise so what do they do they took
03:45 all of this capital and they allocated
03:47 it to purchase and they put cute
03:48 pictures of camels and bodegas at
03:50 distribution just about the time this
03:53 was losing its effectiveness good for
03:54 them but here's what happened our
03:56 sisters our daughters and our mothers
03:58 kept dying so we said that's it no more
04:00 cute camel Joey points of purchase just
04:03 as this was starting to lose some
04:04 momentum and they built the largest
04:06 databases in the world and when they
04:07 since you were stopping smoking they
04:09 started sending you Marlboro points or
04:10 coupons to get you back into the
04:12 franchise the original CRM database
04:15 marketers tobacco companies there are
04:17 exceptions to every rule pre purchase ad
04:20 supported media is not going away it's
04:22 just going to be a place to work or in
04:24 as a matter of fact I'll be watching at
04:26 supported media tonight I'll give you
04:29 one hint we'll see you next week
04:47 [Music]